Participating Frequently

Question

Shared Review toolbar missing locally, though the review PDF works fine for others

Forum|Forum|2 months ago
July 26, 2026
14 replies
109 views

Fellows,

All of a sudden, after going through the Shared Review wizard (SharePoint being the server to store the shared file on), the PDF file gets the _review extension but the yellow toolbar with the Publish Comments button doesn’t show up in the PDF. Updated Acrobat to the latest version - didn’t help. Did anyone else encounter this issue recently?

Thanks!

B

Bhavya-zipBoard

Participant

Also seeing this - the "yellow review bar not showing locally" bug tracks with a few similar reports on this board over the past year, usually tied to how Acrobat re-checks the SharePoint/WebDAV connection after publish. If Adobe's fix (repair/reinstall) doesn't stick for you, worth checking Acrobat's own connection-check settings under Edit > Preferences > Reviewing before reinstalling again.

(Disclosure: I work on zipBoard, a browser-based review tool - a few doc teams we work with moved off self-hosted SharePoint/WebDAV shared review specifically to stop hitting this class of bug. Not selling here, just flagging it exists in case the maintenance burden ever gets old.)

R

ROMANB2723107Author

Participating Frequently

Hi Anand,

I appreciate your response and instructions!

I’ve enabled the protected view back.
Adding the trusted host URL didn’t help.
I actually have “Automatically trust sites from Win OS security zones” enabled and the URL is specified in the Trusted sites menu. But still, the toolbar doesn’t show up. It only shows up when I disable the sandbox. Any further ideas how to resolve that? Thank you!

Anand Sri Bhattacharya

Community Manager

@ROMANB2723107

Please share a sample PDF file through which you are able to reproduce the issue, a screen recording of the workflow, and the logs from the affected user machines, and share them with us for further investigation.

To collect the logs, please refer to this article: https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/acrobat-diagnostics.html

We’ll report this to the product team for further investigation, and we may reach out to you if the product team needs any additional information.

Regards,

Anand Sri.

R

ROMANB2723107Author

Participating Frequently

By the way, keeping the protected view on and just disabling appContainer brings the toolbar back.

R

ROMANB2723107Author

Participating Frequently

My case is different. None of my reviewers see the shared review toolbar. It’s clearly a bug in Acrobat.

Anand Sri Bhattacharya

Community Manager

Hello @ROMANB2723107

I hope you are doing well, and sorry for the trouble you had.

Could you please share more details about the issue? Are you/users on a Mac or Windows machine, and what is the version?

What is the version of Acrobat/Reader installed and used by the user for the reviewers? Check from the Menu (Windows) | Acrobat (Mac) > Help > About Adobe Acrobat.

Please ensure you have the latest version of Acrobat installed on the machine: 26.001.21789, Out of cycle update, Aug 11, 2026. Check for any pending updates by navigating to Menu > Help> Check for Updates. Install the updates, restart the app and the machine, and try again.

For testing purposes, please disable the Enhanced security options from Menu > Preferences > Security (Enhanced) and untick "Enable Protected Mode at startup," restart Acrobat/Reader, and reopen the review file.

Please note that the users need to open the review-enabled copy through the review invitation/link and open it in desktop Acrobat or Reader, not in a browser preview, a mobile app, or a non-Adobe viewer, none of which show the desktop review toolbar.

Also, If the review is hosted on a network folder or SharePoint and some reviewers cannot reach that location, the review context (and its toolbar) will not load for them.

I hope this helps, and please share your observations. And reach out to us if you need any assistance.

Regards,

Anand Sri.

R

ROMANB2723107Author

Participating Frequently

Hi Anand,

Yes, I have the latest build (the one you’ve mentioned). It’s installed on Windows 11 Enterprise. I’ve followed your instructions and disabled “Enable Protected Mode at startup”. The toolbar has shown up after restarting Acrobat. But I think disabling the protected mode is not the right thing to do as it compromises your system security. What are your professional thoughts on that?
Thanks again!

S

sharonh19759294

Participating Frequently

I am having the same issue. I know the review pdf is created correctly because others with the link can see the yellow review bar and publish comments. It’s somewhere on my machine. I even completely removed and reinstalled Acrobat from scratch - still no review bar.

Meenakshi Negi

Community Manager

Hi sharonh19759294,

Thank you for reaching out, and you are experiencing the same issue.

We are currently investigating this behaviour, and I would appreciate your assistance. Could you please share a short video demonstrating the steps you took and what occurred? Additionally, please provide the versions of Acrobat and your operating system that are currently installed on your machine.

We look forward to your response.

Thanks,

Meenakshi

R

ROMANB2723107Author

Participating Frequently

Hi Meenakshi,

Thank you for your response.

I’m using Acrobat DC Pro v. 2026.001.21771 64 bit on Win 11 Enterprise.
I’ve been using Acrobat for many years. All of a sudden, when completing the Send for Shared Commenting wizard, the resulting _review file doesn’t include the yellow shared review toolbar. No error is issued. The feature just doesn’t work as expected and doesn’t allow publishing the comments on the SP server (SharePoint Online). I can’t provide any videos due to confidentiality. Acrobat is updated to the latest version. It’s very unfortunate that such severe issues aren’t being caught by the QA. Shared Review on SharePoint is one of the most important perks that Acrobat provides and one of its main advantages as opposed to alternative PDF tools.
Thanks for looking into this issue in advance!

Meenakshi Negi

Community Manager

Hi ROMANB2723107,

Thank you for the information.

Please allow us some time to check this with our product team. We will update you once we have more information.

Thanks,

Meenakshi

R

ROMANB2723107Author

Participating Frequently

Many thanks, Meenakshi! 🙏🏻

Meenakshi Negi

Community Manager

Hi,

Thank you for reaching out, and sorry to hear that you are experiencing an issue.

Could you please confirm if the problem started recently and whether it occurs with all the files in the shared review section? Here are a few steps to check:

Verify that commenting is enabled:

Open the PDF and select All Tools > Comment. If the Comments pane opens but the Shared Review controls are missing, the review session may not have initialised correctly.

Refresh the review connection.

Close Acrobat completely.
Reopen the file directly from the SharePoint location rather than from a local copy.
Check whether Acrobat displays any prompt to connect to the shared review.

Test with a new Shared Review.

Create a new test PDF and start a fresh Shared Review using the same SharePoint location.

Check for UI customization issues

Try Help > Check for Updates (if not already done).
Reset Acrobat preferences or test in a new user profile to rule out a corrupted Acrobat configuration.

Confirm SharePoint accessibility

Ensure the SharePoint review folder is accessible and that you have the necessary permissions to read and write comments. Connectivity or permission issues can sometimes prevent Acrobat from fully activating the review workflow.

If you continue to experience the same issue, please share a short video demonstrating the steps taken and the options that appear. Additionally, provide the Acrobat and operating system version numbers for your machine.

Let us know how it goes.

Thanks,

Meenakshi

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